ON THE WAY TO VIETNAM

It's "Lily Day"!

2009-03-03T06:41:00.071-06:00

Hard to believe, but it was exactly one year ago today that Lily joined our family! In honor of "Lily Day", I'm *finally* going to update this blog. This is gonna be a LONG post. I'm going to pick up where I left off:

June 9, 2008

June 22, 2008

Lily's 1st birthday!

We didn't want to have a huge party with extended family because Lily hasn't been home that long and we didn't want to overwhelm her. So we took the kids to the Madison Zoo for the day, and then came home and had a little birthday party for her with just us and Grandma.

June 24, 2008

Precarious position for a nap; no wonder she was mad when she woke up:

At Thomas's soccer game:

July 9, 2008

Typical summer day.

4th of July on Bill's deck waiting for the fireworks. Bill's friend Todd is holding Lily.

July 3, 2008

The kids and I went to "Little Switzerland" and "Little Norway" an hour and a half north of us in Wisconsin. Here we are at a Swiss restaurant for lunch.

August 2, 2008

Thomas's 6th birthday

August 8, 2008

My daughter is a little strange sometimes...

August 18, 2008

Back to school! Don't they look thrilled?

August 29, 2008

My brother Bill & Stefanie's wedding.

September 2008

Two weeks at Disney World! I took about a bajillion pictures, so I had to severely limit the number I'm posting here. And hardly ANY food pictures posted--that was hard! We drove down and stayed at Pop Century resort for two weeks (FREE dining plan promotion, yeah!), and Bill, Stef, Kathryn & Calvin flew down and met us there for a week. So here's a sampling of the fun we had.

The candy lady in Japan at Epcot didn't pick Richard this time, poor kid. But William, Anna, & Thomas each got to pick an animal and she made them these candy art creations. She is amazing!
Would you believe...a DRAGON FRUIT tree??!!!

October 4, 2008

William and Anna's 12th birthday:

Halloween 2008

The kids wore their Vietnamese garb trick-or-treating; we stopped at Grandma's house first. Lily stayed home with me while Don took the kids out, so she's not dressed up. Next year for sure.

November 20, 2008
Parent observation day at Anna's ballet class:

December 24, 2008 Christmas Eve

Decorating ginger bread men. We had Bill, Stef, Kathryn, Calvin & Grandma over for Christmas eve dinner that night. I don't know why I have no pictures of this?? Possibly because I was stressed out over my oven dying the night before, mid-cake-bake, and Don & Lauren had to take the half-baked cake over to Grandma's at 11:30 at night to finish baking it. And then on Christmas eve day, I had to go back and forth to Grandma's with everything that I needed to cook in an oven for our Christmas eve dinner too. That was a good time. So I guess I neglected the camera. Oops.

December 25, 2008 Christmas morning

Our poor, sad-looking tree with all of the breakable ornaments only on the top half:

We picked up Grandma so she could watch the kids open their presents. Lily was a bit overwhelmed and confused as to why we were suddenly telling her to rip the wrapping paper off the packages that we had spent the past few weeks telling her NOT to rip open! We just relaxed around the house all day, letting the kids have fun with their new toys. We got a Wii! Whee!

January 18, 2009
Two of my rock stars with their new guitars:

January 20, 2009

Lily and her buckets:

It's never too early to get children to help out around the house:

January 24, 2009

January 25, 2009

January 31, 2009

Must have been a slow news week...

2008-06-04T10:15:00.003-05:00

When Jane, a reporter from our small town's weekly newspaper, called me a few weeks ago and asked if she could interview us about our Vietnam adoption, I figured it would be a nice *little* article in a quiet corner on page 18B or something. HELLO! Front page and huge! Gee thanks, Jane! Very nice article, you did a good job, but ya coulda warned me, lol!

Here are a few pics from last weekend. Lily got to enjoy her first lawn tractor ride with Dad & Thomas, and she loved it:

Lily has a new obsession--the joy of Cheerio's. She can't shove them into her mouth fast enough. I was finally able to capture her "Popeye" face in the 2nd picture.

Several families from our agency received their I600 approvals in the last week or two, so there is a whole big group of them going to Vietnam to get their babies this week. I am so happy and relieved for them--they have been waiting so long, and for a while it looked like they might not get to bring their babies home at all. I hope the US and Vietnam gov'ts can get their acts together and work out a new agreement so adoptions can continue--there are so many kids there who need families.

You can help these needy orphans by writing, emailing, calling your congresspeople and letting them know you want our gov't to work with Vietnam to continue the US-Vietnam adoption program. Here are links to help you find your representatives contact info:

http://www.senate.gov/

http://www.house.gov/

Other links that explain the problem better than I can:

http://www.jcics.org/Vietnam.htm

http://www.jcics.org/Child's%20Right%20Campaign%20-%20Recommendations.pdf

http://www.bringourchildrenhome.org/25901/61301.html

Please do what you can to help the beautiful children of Vietnam find loving homes.

What we've been up to sinced we got home from Vietnam

2008-05-29T17:24:00.023-05:00

We got home late Friday night on Easter weekend, so the Easter Bunny was pretty busy on Saturday trying to get ready. We managed, and plenty of candy was had by all. Lily had to give all of her chocolates to me, poor thing, but she got to keep her stuffed bunny.

My mom, my brother Bill, and his fiance Stefanie came over to meet Lily on Easter.

Lily does love her food--so far she seems to like everything we've fed her. Taken 3/29/08.

With three rowdy older brothers, it's important to know how to use a weapon. Taken 3/31/08.

She absolutely LOVES these Gears. Her favorite toys! They make good teethers too I guess, because she likes to chew on them. She's just starting to get her two bottom front teeth coming through. Taken 4/13/08.Lily would be happy to relieve Anna of her freezer pop. Taken 4/18/08.

So angelic; she fell asleep with her upper lip sucked in. Taken 4/19/08.

Thomas teaching Lily the proper way to use a stick. 4/19/08

Heh, heh. I know how to use a stick now, Mom!

We went to my cousin's daughter Sarah's wedding 4/26/08. Here are some pictures from the reception:

William was slightly bored.
Anna talking to my niece, Kelley, and her beautiful new baby Kate. Kate was born on 3/21/08, the day we spent under siege in a snowstorm at O'hare airport trying to get home.

Thomas being Thomas. I'm not sure what Richard's problem is.
Anna dancing with the bride, Sarah.

Lily with Grandma and soon-to-be Aunt Stefanie.

Then a week later, on 5/3/08, we had another wedding to attend, this one for Don's niece Amanda. Yes, she's wearing the same dress--shoot me. Here's Lily attending a little princess party with Anna and some of her little cousins.

Two of the princesses, Maria (top center) and Olivia (right) were adopted from Guatemala. Their sister Isabel is in the pink dress in the middle, and another cousin, Makenzie (sorry if I spelled that wrong, Matt & Karrie!) is on the left.

We've also started the soccer season:

My two handsome little cub scouts.

Lily started pulling herself up to stand by the coffee table not long after we came home, then soon after that she became an expert at cruising while holding onto the edge of the table. Now recently she has begun to let go and can stand and balance without holding anything. It won't be long now before she's walking unassisted. I'm betting it will be before her first birthday, which is 6/22. These pics were taken on 5/25/08:

She's adjusted very well and is a happy baby. She loves her brothers and sisters, and they adore her in return. We just all love her to pieces are so lucky to have her!

Our long, long, long, long, long trip home.

2008-05-26T21:56:00.007-05:00

We left our hotel in Hanoi at 8:30 am on Wednesday, March 19th Vietnam time (that would be 8:30 pm Tues. eve, March 18th, Illinois time). We walked in our front door on Friday night, March 21st, shortly before midnight. So about 75 hours door to door. Let me just say that is a LONG time to be traveling with 4 kids and a baby. We had a few unexpected (and unwelcome) delays along the way.

Unfortunately, I was too stressed to even bother taking many pictures of the trip home, which I regret now. But all we could think of at the time was "get us home!"

Here are a couple pictures of rice fields on the way to the Hanoi airport:

You can see a cemetary in the distance in this picture. We saw alot of above-ground cemetaries out in the middle of fields all over Vietnam.

On the way to the airport, I was feeling pretty confident in my ability to get all of us and our bags checked in with lots of time to spare. After all, I had just taken Lauren there two days before, so I knew exactly where to go. Only problem was, on Monday with Lauren, the airport was practically empty. Today, the entire population of northern Vietnam was in the international flights area when we walked in the door. I kid you not--it was more crowded than Walt Disney World during the fireworks on New Year's Eve. We had grabbed two carts outside when we unloaded our multitude of bags from the taxi, and they were both piled high. So picture Don and I each pushing a cart-o-luggage, holding a baby, and trying to keep 4 more kids together while wading through a sea of humanity to try to find the right counter to check in. Oh, and nobody spoke English that day either. For the first time in this entire amazing trip, I was beginning to panic. We could barely move through the people, and it was impossible to see where any line to the counters began. I finally figured out that all of these people were waiting for flights to Moscow, according to the signs above the counters. Now, why 5,000 (seemed like it!) Vietnamese people felt the need to go to Moscow on this particular day, I'll probably never know, but I was quite relieved when we realized that we didn't need to be in *that* mess! We eventually pushed our way thru the crowd and made it to the correct counters for our flight to Hong Kong with FAR fewer people waiting, thank goodness. Crisis averted. Our flight to Hong Kong was fine, and we made it thru the Hong Kong airport to our gate for our flight to LA, but then there was another security check at the gate as we were boarding our flight. I am very lucky that I didn't end up in a Hong Kong jail, because I sort of lost it on the young security guy who was checking my diaper bag and didn't want to let me take the 2 sealed, unopened water bottles I had for mixing Lily's formula. This had never been a problem before, and I was a *little* stressed, so I started arguing with him and saying, in a too-loud voice, "well then you tell me how I'm supposed to feed my baby?!" Then another security guy comes over and tells me to calm down, and he tells me the other guy is new, it's ok to take the water afterall. Good, I won't have to kill you then.

We had 2 seats in the bulkhead of the 747, and the other 4 seats were in the middle, about 6 or so rows behind us, so we were separated again on the long flight. Anna and William took turns sitting by me and Lily, and Don sat with the rest of the kids. They gave us the bassinet that attaches to the wall in front of the seat, but Lily didn't sleep well in it at all, so I held her for most of the flight, but she did pretty well.

We finally arrived in LA around 2 pm LA time on Wed. Mar. 19th. Lily automatically became a US citizen when we touched down on US soil. YAY! I really wish I had gotten a picture of that, but I couldn't begin to tell you which bag the camera was in at this point, and we had other things to worry about. We had to go thru customs and then get to another terminal for our flight to Denver and then on to Moline. The lines going thru customs were LONG, and we were literally running to try to make it in time for our flight to Denver. We got to the United counter in the nick of time to check in, only to be told that our flight had been cancelled due to mechanical reasons, and the next flight he could get us on was into Chicago with a connecting flight to Moline, but that didn't leave until 11pm the next night (Thursday nite)! ARRRGH! So United had to put us up at a Quality Inn near the airport until then. At least we got to sleep a little, but everyone's internal clocks were so screwed up that it wasn't a good night's sleep. Lily was having night terrors or something, because she would wake up and look around and be inconsolable because she didn't know where she was. I called Lauren to let her know we were stuck in LA and she suggested we go to Hollywood and sight-see. As if! I don't care how boring and ugly our little airport neighborhood was, I wasn't about to get in one more vehicle that I didn't have to!

Here's a couple pics of the kids crashed at our LA hotel:

I don't know if this was taken in the LA airport or in Chicago, but she looks cute anyway!

So, we went back to the airport Thursday evening to catch our 11 pm flight to Chicago, and when we checked in, they told us our connecting flight to Moline early the next morning had been cancelled due to the weather. But don't worry about it, they'll put you on the next one. Right. We get into Ohare around 4:30am, and flights are being cancelled left and right due to a snowstorm. There were 4 or 5 scheduled flights to Moline that day, and one by one, they were all cancelled. We decided to rent a minivan and drive thru the storm to get to Moline, but there wasn't a rental car to be had at Ohare. (I guess we weren't the only ones with cancelled flights that day.) We finally got a good United counter agent who did some fancy stuff with her computer and got all of us on the last remaining flight to Moline for the day, scheduled to leave at 2:30pm, but she wasn't very optimistic about whether or not it would be cancelled too. So we just hung out at the airport all day, watching the moniter as our flight kept getting delayed further and further, and the snow falling harder and harder. We really did not know what we would do if it got cancelled; we were out of plan "B's", plan "C's" and even plan "D's". I think we were at plan "F", as in, "you F***ing United people had better get us home or someone is going to die." (We aren't usually violent people, but remember, it's now Friday and we've been traveling with 4 kids and a baby since Tues. night Illinois time, with maybe 4 to 6 sporadic hours of sleep during all that time. We were a little testy by now.) Luckily, we found a kid's play area in our terminal; that really saved the day. By late afternoon, the flight monitor was saying our flight would leave at 6:30pm, so a little before 6 we left the play area and moseyed on down to our gate. We sat there for quite awhile, and then they announced that the flight would be delayed a little longer, because they needed to get some new flight attendents for the trip, because the one's already on the plane had logged too many hours or something. So here are the kids as we waited at the gate to board our flight. Count 'em. 1-2-3-4-5 sleeping kids, plus 8 various carry-on bags for Don and I to figure out how to get on the plane:

We managed to get William and Anna to a zombie-like state, but with walking capabilities when they finally let us board. We managed to somehow carry the rest of them. We had to sit on the runway for what seemed like forever while we waited for them to de-ice the plane, but we finally took off around 8:30 or 9pm. Hallelujah! It was a short flight to Moline, and then we got our van and drove the 1 hr 45 min. trip to Galena. Here's the first picture of the Lily in her new home, right after we got in the door Friday night. It was FREEZING in the house because we had turned the heat way down before we left, so they're all trying to get warm, but VERY glad to be finally home:

It was a long and stressful trip for everyone, but I am so amazed at how well all of the kids, Lily included, handled it. There were a few minor melt-downs on the way, but for all of the time they spent standing in lines or sitting with nothing to do in all of these airports and planes, with very little sleep, they were awesome and I'm so proud of them.

Our last day in Vietnam

2008-04-27T17:57:00.027-05:00

I have no excuse for my failure to complete our trip report in a timely manner, so I won't even try to give one! So just never mind, and let's get on with it! (Naggers, you know who I'm talking about!)

So here we are on Tuesday, March 18th--our last full day in Hanoi. We had been looking down into the "Hanoi Hilton" from our apartment on the 8th floor of the Somerset Hotel next door all week:

and we finally made it into the place for a tour. A good portion of the prison had been torn down and that is where the Somerset now stands; what remains has been turned into a museum open to the public for touring. This prison was where American POW's were kept by the North Vietnamese during the war, but before that, it was built by the French and used by them to imprison Vietnamese insurgents during the lengthy French occupation of VN during the late 1800's and first half of the 1900's. Most of the museum's exhibits definitely have a "spin", focusing on the mistreatment of the Vietnamese prisoners by their evil French captors. There was only one small part of the museum that told of the Americans (including John McCain) that once were housed there; and if you didn't know any better, you'd swear they were there having a great time--all the pictures showed the American POW's laughing, playing games and ball. Whee! A fine time was had by all!

Here's the entrance--notice the name above the door is in French:

Pictures from inside the prison--here are some original doors:

Inside the prison walls:

This depicts the way Vietnamese prisoners were treated by the French. Female prisoners (some with babies or small children!) were kept in separate blocks of the prison:

Thomas in one of the cells:

Help me.

Squatty potties (use your imagination):

What goes in up there, must come out down here---poop chutes? hee hee:

This guillotine was the actuctal one used by the French to remove the heads of Vietnamese trouble-makers:

View from the side:

In the "American" section, this is supposedly the flight suit John McCain was wearing when he was captured:The sign says this is a bed used by an American pilot (POW):

After we finished with the prison tour, I dragged the family on a quest to find some good Vietnamese coffee and tea to bring home, and then we went to another restaurant in the old quarter for lunch, Cafe Mocha. It had a huge menu and very reasonable prices. Lily was feeling particularly photogenic:

My dish was some sort of coconut milk and shrimp concoction. Quite tastey!

William re-arranging his sandwich:

Lots of milkshakes and smoothies on the menu, if I recall correctly:

After lunch, we walked around the lake and did a little shopping, and then over to the Water Puppet Theater to get tickets for a show later this evening. We took a taxi back to the hotel to clean up, and then returned to the theater for the show. It's hard to describe, and it was too dark to get any decent pictures of the show with our camera, though we did video tape part of it. It's a very old art form in Vietnam (and China maybe?) where the puppeteers are in a pool of water behind a screen and the puppets are performing on the surface of the water. There are Vietnamese singers and musicians playing traditional music to accompany the show. The music was awesome, and the kids enjoyed the show. This is just a picture of where we were sitting in the theater; I wish I had pictures of the show to post. Oh well.

After the show, we grabbed a taxi in front of the theater to take us to Le Cyclo for dinner. We got the worst taxi driver in Hanoi! I would have sworn we were being taken, except that we had pre-negotiated the price with him, so he had nothing to gain by wasting his time and gas driving all over the place looking for the restaurant. I had a fairly good idea of where this restaurant was located, so when we got to the other end of the lake (by Bobby Chinn's) and he turned left when I knew he should have turned right, I knew we had a problem! Unfortunately, he spoke no English, so we just kept pointing to the name and address of the restaurant on the little card we had, and he kept nodding, and then he pulled over and was asking some people on the sidewalk for directions. He finally turned around and headed in the right direction, but when we found the right street, he STILL couldn't find the place, and so he pulled over and asked somebody for directions AGAIN! I kind of felt sorry for him by this point; it was obviously his first day in Hanoi, let alone as a taxi driver! This was not some obscure restaurant in a far-flung section of Hanoi--it's a VERY popular-with-tourists restaurant in the main tourist area! There was no excuse for him not to even know where this street was. Seriously, I really think I could have driven us there more quickly!

So we finally got to Le Cyclo, where most of the seats around the tables are actually from old cyclos. The food was great too, and not *too* expensive.

Anna's going to kill me for posting this horrid picture of her, but that's just the kind of mom I am:

Don said this was one of the best steaks he's ever had. Which was a pleasant surprise, because some of the "beef" we were served in Vietnam was questionable.

I had the daily "special", which was some sort of duck breast dish, served over mashed potatoes. Very good.

Anna and Lily checking out the fish tank:

Our waitress took Lily while we ate:

In front of Le Cyclo, waiting for our taxi to take us back to the hotel:

Luckily, this taxi drive knew where he was going, because I had ALOT of packing to do; we needed to be in the lobby with all our bags by 8:30 am to get our taxi to the airport. I was up VERY late getting everything packed carefully, and trying to fit all of our souvenirs and gifts. Why does the mom always have to do this stuff?

Now where was I?

2008-03-29T21:04:00.029-05:00

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to finish our Vietnam travel tale; this jet lag thing is not to be taken lightly--it has taken me a full week to feel normal again.

So at last report, we were on our way back to Hanoi from our weekend trip to Halong Bay. We got back to our hotel around 5pm Sunday evening, and this was Lauren's last night in VN (as she was returning home by herself a couple of days before the rest of us to get back to her classes) and her 20th birthday was on Mar. 20th, so we went out to dinner at Bobby Chinn's to celebrate her golden birthday. This is a pricey restaurant by Vietnamese standards, entrees ranging from about $15 - $22, but in the US this place would easily charge double what we paid here. We didn't have a reservation, and this is a popular restaurant, so we were seated in the lounge area for dinner. It worked out well, since we had a nice sectional sofa-type thing to sit on, and we spread out a blanket and let baby (we hadn't named her yet at this point) play there. It reminded me of what an opium den must look like, all surrounded with silk drapes over and around the seating area, rose petals on the table.

Ok, on to the obligatory foodie pictures. Don had the salmon and wasabi mashed potatoes:

Lauren had the filet, still mooing, just the way she likes it. This was the most expensive item on the menu at around $22 if I remember correctly.

I had the prawns. With a couple of unnecessary heads still attached. Still delicious though:

Anna had the bbq ribs:

Baby had the crayon box. It was a little tough:

The boys all had burgers, and those don't rate a photo. The waitstaff must have heard us mention Lauren's birthday, because after our meal they surprised her with a complimentery birthday dessert and "Happy Birthday" song, which of course she just loves having sung to her:

So I give 2 thumbs up to Bobby Chinn's. Not the cheapest place in town though. After dinner, Don and the boys and baby took a taxi back to the hotel while Lauren, Anna, & I went to the old quarter to do a little shopping. We got out of the taxi at the end of the lake by Highlands Coffee, and who do we run smack into? The former North Vietnam army colonel bud of Don's! He called out to us and we had little chat. Can you imagine running into someone you know in this huge city packed full of people? I'm still amazed. We shopped for a couple of hours and then everything started closing--it was around 10pm or so by then--so we grabbed a taxi and went home.

Next morning we had to get up early to get ready to take Lauren to the airport. Lauren had a hard time saying goodbye to baby. She had grown very attached to her, and I know they'll miss each other alot.

I can see the resemblence:

Don and the kids stayed at the hotel and Lauren and I went to the airport by taxi. It took about an hour and 15 minutes to get to the airport that morning; luckily the airport was not crowded that day and we didn't have much of a line to wait in to get her checked in for her flights. I said goodbye at the security checkpoint and returned to my waiting taxi for the trip back into Hanoi. Shortly after we left the airport, we went thru a tollbooth, and the tollbooth guy and my taxi driver had a few stern Vietnamese words at each other, and then the driver pulled ahead and off to the side of the road and parked. The only thing he could manage to say to me in English as he got out of the car was "sorry", and then off he trotted back to the toll booth and out of sight. I just sat there in the taxi on the side of the road and wondered if he would be coming back anytime soon, or if I might be about to be arrested and thrown in a VN prison for associating with a criminal, but my fears were for naught. He came back in about 5 minutes, muttered "sorry" again, and off we went. I have no idea what that was all about!

When I got back to the hotel, it was lunchtime, so guess what we did? Yep, off to eat again! This time we decided to go to an Italian place, Mediterraneo, and we decided to walk since it was a nice day. So, map in hand, off we went. A guy selling VN travel books kept following us practically all the way there, begging us to buy a book. Don finally gave him a couple bucks just to get rid of him. Otherwise, it was a nice walk, and the restaurant was easy to find. Richard didn't like the pizza, so he traded dad for his "bacon & eggs spaghetti", which got his approval.

William wasn't too fond of the pizza either:

After lunch, we went shopping in the old quarter for some gifts and souvenirs. I wish we would have had more time for shopping. I could have done some serious damage. The walking is difficult though, especially with kids, because of the obstacles blocking the sidewalks wherever you go. We ended up walking in the street more than on the sidewalks, and those scooters are everywhere. We bought several things, including the required cone hats for the kids. I found a red velvet coat and a knit hat and booties for sweetie to wear when we get back to the airport in Moline and have to deal with the cold. It was a pretty warm day and we were getting tired, so we stopped for a cold beverage at a corner cafe. She just hauled out a plastic table and a plastic chair for each of us and plopped them down on the sidewalk for us, thus creating one of those obstacles I spoke of.

The kids all had chocolate milk:

We had a nice cold brew:

As we sat there drinking our beverages, the cyclo drivers began circling us, eyeing their prey. We had planned on walking back to the hotel, but we relented to the high-pressure sales tactics of the cyclo drivers and employed 3 of them to drive us back to the hotel. What the heck, we wanted to try them out anyway:

The scooters just kept driving around us. Note all the helmets--Kim had told us that the VN government decided to require helmets for scooters a few months ago, and from what we saw, compliance was darn close to 100%. (On adults anyway; most child passengers we saw were not wearing them. I guess their heads are less likely to break.) Pretty amazing to have such obedient citizens. I can't imagine Americans being so compliant.

We got back to the hotel and since it was warmer than it had been since we'd been in Hanoi, we told the kids we could try out the Somerset's nice pool. Turns out it felt alot warmer on the streets of Hanoi than it did at the pool on the 4th floor of the hotel. The water was cold, but the kids got in for a while anyway. Even the "spa" was cold. It had bubbles though!

All that shopping wore her out. Such an angel~

No more pictures for this day; Richard wasn't feeling well after his dip in the frigid pool, so we just ordered room service from Jaspa's instead of going out for dinner.

Night or day, day or night?

2008-03-24T16:13:00.002-05:00

I'm a little confused, as is our baby, Lily. (Middle name Minh, part of her Vietnamese name.) Yes, we finally settled on her name the day before we left Vietnam. We had a gruelling trip home; 76 hours from the time we left our hotel in Hanoi until we walked in the door at home. Spent some unexpected extra time in LA and Chicago due to flight cancellations and delays. We got home around midnight Friday night and we've all been trying to adjust to the time changes and jet lag all weekend.

Lily caught a cold somewhere on the long trek home, but other than that, and her desire to party all...night...long, she's adjusting really well. She was such a good sport in all the airports, hotels, and planes we dragged her through. All the kids were good, considering how tired they all were.

I still intend to post about our last couple of days in Vietnam--maybe this evening after Don gets home from work if I can stay awake--but this quickie update will have to do for now.

Goodbye, Vietnam

2008-03-18T19:27:00.002-05:00

We are leaving for the airport very soon this morning, so I just have time for a quick post. I'll have to update with pictures and stories of our last couple of days once we're home. Thanks for all the comments!

Halong Bay/ Cat Ba Island

2008-03-17T06:39:00.053-05:00

Saturday morning a tour bus/van picked us up at our hotel at 8:00 am to go on a 2 day/1 night trip to Halong Bay, a beautiful natural wonder off the coast of northern Vietnam. It was a 3 1/2 hour drive, but they stopped 1/2 way there for a short break at a place where handicapped people work and make crafts to sell to tourists. In less than 30 minutes at this joint, Lauren managed to snag two new boyfriends, and one gave her a ring and a bracelet. Nicely done, Lauren!

Workers doing hand-embroidery:

Getting closer to Halong Bay, beautiful scenery fortells of things to come.

There were 2 young women from Korea on our tour van. They spoke very little English, and my Korean is a little rusty, but they made friends with sweetie-pie while we waited to board our boat. In addition to the American Family (us) and the Korean girls, there were people from England, Taiwan, Colorado, and Japan on our tour van.

Boarding our boat:

We were immediatly seated at tables inside the boat and served a (so-so) seafood lunch.

The squid was pretty good:

I told Anna I'd give her a dollar if she'd eat one squid tentacle; she contemplated and tasted a tiny bite:

The scenery was gorgeous, but unfortutnately, the weather was hazy and cloudy, so it wasn't as beautiful as it would have been on a clear, sunny day. We cruised on the bay during our lunch and for an hour or so after.

We stopped at one of the islands and climbed alot of stairs up to the opening of a huge cave and were given a tour of the cave with it's many stalagtites and stalagmites. The pictures didn't turn out very good, so I'll spare you. We got back on the boat, but because there were many other tour boats at the dock, we had to do a little boat-hopping to get across to ours. Not as easy as it sounds, especially with young kids and carrying a baby. But none of us fell into the water, and we felt a little like pirates. Here's a floating village on the bay; people actually live and work (fishing industry) here.

We had the option of sleeping in cabins on the boat, or at a hotel on Cat Ba Island; they recommended the hotel for us because of all the kids and baby. We got off the boat on one side of the island and boarded a jam-packed ancient bus for a slightly frightening, but with gorgeous views, 20 minute or so trip up the mountain and over to the other side of the island where Cat Ba town and the hotels were. They got us 2 rooms at this hotel, which was a little on the dumpy side. Ok, a LOT on the dumpy side.

We checked into our rooms, and then we had a couple of hours to kill before we were to meet in the hotel restaurant for the dinner included with our tour. Our tour guide, Hoi, told us where to go to find a beach. Here's the view down the street from in front of our hotel.

Walking to the beach. Cat Ba town is pretty much just a tourist town for the thousands of vistors to Halong Bay. Plenty of hotels, restaurants, and bars. Not much else that I could see.

Over the hill, and there was the beach. Actually it was one of two or three beaches nearby. I think they are all man-made beaches though, with the sand brought in. I don't think there are naturally occurring beaches on these islands, just muddy/rocky coasts. But tourists want beaches, so there you go.

The water was pretty cold, and we only had a short time before we needed to go back to the hotel for dinner, so we just waded a little.

We were instructed by Hoi to meet in the hotel restaurant for dinner at 6:30. The hotel was pretty scary, but the food was fantastic. Very similar to the meal we were served on the boat for lunch, but much better. The squid were the most tender I've ever had.

We were still eating and this dog comes sauntering in and makes himself comfortable on the floor beneath our table. I guess he lives here; never mind that this is a restaurant! The kids didn't mind though. I'm just glad he wasn't dinner.

After dinner, Hoi taught the kids some Vietnamese phrases and songs. Then Don and the boys and baby stayed in the hotel room because they were all tired, while Lauren, Anna, and I walked down to the waterfront to check out the Cat Ba nightlife. We stopped for a drink (chocolate milk and cocoa for the girls, a B-52 for me) at an outdoor cafe and watched the people go by. Lots of European tourists. Walked around for a little while and went back to the hotel and went to bed.

Next morning we had to be back in the restaurant for breakfast at 7:30am, then back on the Flintstones bus for another hair-raising, bone-jarring bus ride over the mountain and back to the boat docks. We were doing ok until about 5 minutes before we reached the other side, when all that bouncing around caused punkin to get sick and puke all over Don's lap, my back, the diaper bag and a little on the man in front of me. Fun to clean up while packed in like sardines with strangers all around. After that mess, we boarded the boat again for some more cruising on the bay. Hoi was such a nice and personable guy--he really helped us out alot with the kids and Thomas and Richard especially adored him.

Anna and Lauren enjoying the ride.

Hoi took Thomas and down to the pilot house to meet the captain. He even got to 'drive' the boat for a bit. He was ecstatic!

William and Richard got to go in to see the captain too.

We finally ended up back on the mainland and disembarked, then were led to a restaurant for our included lunch. This huge jar with all manner of snakes, lizards, and a few birds was fermenting in some kind of alcohol on the counter. You are supposed to drink it--good for what ails ya. I didn't have any ails, so I passed.

The dishes we were served were much the same in content as our previous 2 meals, but this meal was severely lacking in quality. Squid was very tough, and the spring rolls were just mush inside. Yuck. We didn't eat much here. Good think there's white rice.

There were several other tour groups at this restaurant as well, and Don met this guy and became buds. He was a colonel in the North Vietnamese army during the Vietnam-American war. No hard feelings though! Friendly guy, and Don was sufficiently impressed with his military credentials.

On the van ride back to Hanoi. I'm not sure what kind of face this is. Thomas sat on Hoi's lap almost the entire trip back. He kept asking if we could bring Hoi to live at our house. Hey! He'd make a great manny! I was amazed at the way Thomas took to him though; usually he's so shy around strangers. He totally loved Hoi though. Hoi gave us his email address so I can send him some pictures of the kids. Awesome tour guide.

It was a long two days, but I'm glad we did the trip. If I had it to do over, I think I'd book one of the more pricey tours and get a better place to stay; this trip only cost $236.00 US and that was for all 7 of us and the baby. It included everything--transportation, hotel, boat tour, cave tour, all meals. Only thing we paid for were beverages.

**Edited to add: By the way, although it seems from the photos that my 11 yr old daughter, Anna, has a neck-full of hickies, rest assured she does not. Those are bruises courtesy of Pinchy Patty.

Back from Halong Bay

2008-03-16T12:20:00.002-05:00

This will be quick as I need to get to bed since I'm going to the airport with Lauren in the morning. We got back from our 2 day/1 night trip to Halong Bay. As usual, we took lots of pictures, and I hope to post them tomorrow sometime. We got back to our hotel at around suppertime, so we went to Bobby Chinn's restaurant to have dinner and celebrate Lauren's 20th birthday (on March 20). Then Lauren, Anna, & I went shopping in the old quarter for a couple hours while Don took the rest of the kids back to the hotel. More later.

It's all about the Ho

2008-03-14T09:50:00.019-05:00

This morning we went to Ho Chi Minh's museum and mausoleum. These people REALLY love their Uncle Ho. The museum was one big Ho-fest. A guide took us thru the museum and told us all about his accomplishments, good deeds, prophetic capabilites, and other god-like qualites. I had the distinct and uneasy impression that anyone who made a disparaging remark about him would be taken out back and shot immediately, but maybe that was just me being paranoid. It was way too long and boring for the kids, especially since our guide's so-so English made listening intently quite difficult. But even the kids seemed to understand the reverence required, and they were quiet and well-behaved during our tour. Unfortunately, the mausoleum, where Uncle Ho's preserved body is laid out for viewing (the main attraction Lauren wanted to see in VN~those of you who know her will understand), is closed on Fridays and Mondays. And today was Friday. Lauren was not pleased, because we'll be out of town all weekend (trip to Halong Bay) and then she leaves for home Monday morning.

Here are just a couple of pictures from the museum:

In the background is the closed-today mausoleum where his body lies. (note Lauren's p.o.'d face and body language):

Also on the grounds is the famous One-Pillar Pagoda. We didn't have time to really look into it's significance because we needed to get back to hotel to meet Kenny and Martin to go to our visa interview, so here are some pictures, and if you want to know more about the place, I guess you'll have to google it:

We ordered pizza to be delivered to our room for lunch, left Lauren in charge of the kids, and then Don, the baby, and I went with Martin & Kenny to the US Consulate for our visa interview. We went with another couple and their baby who are also with our agency. We thought we'd just do the interview today, and then have to return for the visa on Monday, but when we were called up to the window, there really wasn't even an interview at all; he just asked us if the information on our I600 was true and correct, and I had to sign a paper. Then he said that we could just wait there and our baby's visa would be ready in about an hour! How easy was that? We are now free to leave Vietnam with our baby and return to the US. So we got acquainted with Sarah and her husband and baby and soon the visas were ready and we went back to the hotel.

Here's a picture of Martin (L) and Kenny (R) with us in our room:

Sarah had told us about a bigger, better Citimart down the street several blocks, so Lauren, William, Anna & I made a supply run. The store is bigger than the one in our hotel, but I still couldn't find any damn bagels. It does, however, have a very good supply of items that fall into the category of "What the hell is that?", so it all evens out in the end. Here are a couple pictures of our walk back home:

Need a tv?

William making her laugh:

We walked a few blocks to the restaurant we *wanted* to dine at last night, Quan An Ngon, but last night, since there was a 20 minute wait for a table, we went to the ant-ridden establishment next-door. Tonight we got a table right away, upstairs on the balcony. Very cool place. And cheap! And very, very good! Yay, we have a winner!

Our waitress liked Thomas:

My spring rolls and coconut sticky-rice, which were excellent. And baby's foot, which was a little chewy:

The view from our table was so tropical-paradise-ish:

Tomorrow morning we leave at 8am for a 3 to 4 hour drive to Halong Bay. We'll stay overnight there and return late Sunday afternoon, so I won't be able to post again until after that.

2008-03-13T10:37:00.036-05:00

It was cool and cloudy today, so these pictures aren't the best, but this is the view from one of our windows. The tall building is the Melia hotel. Such a contrast in this city between the modern and the very old.

Hello, sunshine!

We got a slow start today, mainly because I was trying to upload pictures again, so it was lunchtime before we left the apartment. We went to the Citimart grocery last night to get some breakfast foods, so we're good there, but for lunch we decided to try the Green Tangerine, highly recommended by many other BTDT adoptive parents. It's located over near the lake in the old quarter, but we took a taxi today instead of walking. Some foodie pictures:

This is what Don had; can't remember what it's called, but he said it was outstanding:

I liked most of what I had; the scallops were a little fishy tasting IMO, but the stir fry beef was pretty good. Appetizers of spring rolls and breaded shrimp were just ok.

Lauren got her hair cut at a salon in the shopping center in our hotel this morning. She wasn't all that happy with it, but I think it's cute.

This is apparently a 'green tangerine'. It was Don's dessert, and I didn't hear him say if he liked it or not.

The waitress spoke to punkin in Vietnamese, and you could tell she understood the language, at least she seemed enthralled. She couldn't take her eyes off the waitress as she spoke, and then she happily went to her and held on tight. I will admit, I was jealous. I imagined the baby thinking, "Finally! You have come to rescue me from these aliens and take me home!"

After lunch, we walked around the old quarter for just a little while; so many shops I wanted to explore, but the kids aren't into shopping unfortunately, and the sidewalks were crowded with people and scooters, and it was difficult to walk around. So we made our way back to the lakeside and grabbed a taxi to the hotel.

Bear with me as I post a bunch of pictures of the hotel for my adoption friends who are waiting to travel. These are of our 3 bdrm/2 bath villa. (Disclaimer: the unit looked alot better before we dumped all of our stuff in it.) Here's the living/dining area:

Small balcony off the kitchen:

Kitchen:

Entryway, looking down the hall towards the bedrooms and bathrooms:

Master bedroom (king bed; pretty comfortable):

Another view of master bdrm:

Master bath (tub & shower):

Bedroom #2 (queen or double bed; I'm not sure which):

Bedroom #3 (2 twin beds):

Bath #2 (shower, no tub):

These are pictures of the children's play room on the 5th floor. Looks like an empty apartment with some toys in it:

We then were going to go next door to the infamous "Hanoi Hilton", the former POW prison where John McCain spent many years during the VN war, but we arrived just as it was closing at 4:30pm, so we'll go back another day. We can look right down into it from our rooms. Some of it was demolished when they built the Hanoi Towers, where our hotel is, but what remains can be toured. Here is a picture of the hotel from below:

Outside wall of the prison. There's broken glass cemented into the top of the wall, as well as electric fencing.

Here's where we went for a late dinner. It's within walking distance of the hotel. Check out the menu item in the right column, 2nd one down. William wouldn't order it though.

A couple of Tiger beers (Vietnamese) to start things off.

Fake smile; he thought he would be getting beef fried rice, and so did we. Our waitress spoke no English.

Don decided to be adventurous and order the "Fried Crap". Turns out it was just plain ole' carp. Don't ya love translation errors?

And Richard never would have guessed his hamburger would be topped with a fried egg. If only I had captured the look on his face when he saw this. Priceless! Luckily, fried eggs can be removed quite easily.

"I'm just happy I don't have to eat any of this stuff!"

Actually, we were all moderately content with our food until Anna noticed 2 ants crawling on her bread. And then I found a dead one in my rice. Ok, appetites now killed. This caused Thomas to immediately pass out. Or maybe it was because it was late and he was just tired, I'm not sure. Anyway, we paid our bill and left without complaining, because the food was cheap and they wouldn't have understood us anyway.

Tomorrow we have our interview with the US immigration to get lil' darlin's visa to enter the US.

Hopefully, that will go smoothly and we'll get her visa probably on Monday, then we'll be free to leave the country with her. Our flight home is on Wednesday.

Wed. March 12~travel to Hanoi

2008-03-12T21:38:00.026-05:00

We left the Evergreen hotel Wed. morning at 5:30am to go to the airport to catch our flight to Hanoi. There was so much more of HCMC that we would have liked to explore, but just not enough time. Hopefully, someday when baby is old enough to appreciate it, we'll be able to return to her birth city. Here are some pictures in the HCMC airport, taken as we wait for our flight.

These are taken on the plane~her first airplane ride! She's very excited:

We were picked up at the airport by a van from the Somerset Grand for the approximately 1 hour drive to our hotel. The Somerset Grand is an apartment hotel. We had to get a 3-bedroom unit to accommodate our family size. This was a little "welcome" on our dining table when we arrived (plate of fresh fruit, rose petals floating in bowl of water, personalized welcome card):

We got a phone call from Martin (Martin and Kenny are the "Kim and Ellie" of the north) soon after we checked in. They were coming to meet us and get some papers from us at 2pm, so we relaxed in the room for awhile and then went to lunch at Jaspas, the restaurant on the 4th floor of the hotel. We ran into another World Child couple (Sarah A.) with their baby from Lang Son in the elevator on our way down to lunch. We had emailed a few times before we left, so she recognized our large clan right away and introduced herself. Hopefully we'll get together with them sometime here. We all got the lunch buffet at Jaspas--I wasn't very impressed with the food at all. Fairly expensive and the kids didn't like much. Maybe off the menu would be better, but with this many people, I felt it was way too expensive for us. We met with Martin and Kenny briefly after lunch, and then went out for a walk to find Hoan Kiem lake. We were pointed in the right direction by the doorman, and off we went, map in hand. It was a nice 20 minute or so walk to the lake (probably faster without kids) and then we took a stroll all around the lake. The weather was much cooler than HCMC, and breezy. Probably in the upper 70's. Here are some pictures we took during our circumnavigation of the lake:

Bottle break:

This woman spoke English very well, and gave me a big story about how she has 6 kids too (and she's only 34). Lots of small talk about kids, and *then* she mentions that she's selling these Vietnam postcards. I ended up buying 3 packages from her. Ok, so Don and Lauren were teasing me that I just got taken, and she probably only has the one kid she was holding, but oh well, her sales technique was much more pleasant than the shove-it-in-your-face sales method.

Famous red bridge in the background:

On the red bridge that goes out to the pagoda:

Pagoda (I can't remember its name):

There's an incredibly fascinating turtle in there (roll eyes):

This man REALLY loved my boys. The sentiments were NOT mutual:

This mummified turtle has some important significance, but I can't tell you what that is:

Religious icons inside the pagoda. There were some people praying to them:

Outside the pagoda:

We stopped to take a rest on the other side of the lake, and this young guy brings a little white mouse over to us, and tried to sell it. I said no way, but he kept letting the kids pet it, and then it pooped on the baby's head! I cleaned her up with a baby wipe as best I could, and he wandered away, but then the kids noticed he had put the mouse on the ground and was kicking at it. I ran over to him and yelled "No, no, no!" But he continued to abuse the poor mouse. He went farther away, and the kids watched him and they think he killed it and threw it in the grass. Asshole. I don't know if it was all part of a ruse to distract us so the other 2 people he was with could try to pick our pockets or what, but we guarded our bags very carefully.

After that, we walked around until we finally found Al Fresco's, a restaurant that I'd heard was good. It was ok, still more expensive than we would have liked for our family size. William and Anna had burgers and didn't like them. My nachos were pretty good. Don had a Hawaiian pizza and thought it was very good. Lauren didn't like her chicken sandwich very much either.

Ok, I'm finally caught up. We're heading out to dinner now; I'll try to post about today when we get back.

Still catching up~Tues. March 11~our last day in Saigon

2008-03-12T20:13:00.018-05:00

Tuesday morning Don went with Kim to pick up the baby's passport at the police station. When he got back, we decided to go for lunch and then to the book fair at the park across the street for awhile. We couldn't go far because we needed to be back at the hotel by 3pm to meet up with Ellie and Kim again for more paperwork. We walked up the street a few blocks to a sandwich shop we had seen earlier. Ordering food in a restaurant with a bunch of kids who don't know what they want is always a PITA, but throw in the language barrier and it's more fun than a barrel of monkeys. We ended up with some food despite this.

William looks mad here, but he wasn't; he liked his triple-decker sandwich and iced yogurt. And of course Anna had to arrange her food just so and pose for a picture. She just got some kind of bread bowl thing with butter and strawberry bubble tea.

Pondering her next move...

The book fair was huge, and is an annual event here. I could have spent all day there. Food and snack booths, a stage for live entertainment at night, all sorts of educational products besides books. I got a couple board games for the kids with the words in both English and Vietnamese. One is sort of like a VN version of Monopoly.

We came back to the room to meet with Kim and Ellie, then Don and boys and baby stayed in the A/C while Lauren, Anna, and I ventured back out in the heat. We walked down the street a few blocks to check out a shop that had a top on display in the window that Lauren was interested in. Turns out this shop was VERY expensive, but we looked around anyway. We must have looked like white trash or something, because a clerk followed us around in a none-too-subtle manner. Everytime we'd look at something, the girl would come along after us and re-straighten the hanger we had moved. There was a mannequin in the window we were laughing about--she had a real cigarette shoved between her fingers, so I took a picture of it. The clerk immediately ran over and touched my arm and said "no". Gee, I was getting the feeling we weren't wanted there! Never did find that top Lauren was looking for.

Since our feelings were hurt, we decided to stop in this "green" food store and have a delicious fresh fruit smoothie. Anna had pineapple, Lauren had mango-strawberry, and I had pear. Yum! I hope that ice wasn't made from tap water.... getting a little careless here--hope Montezuma or Ho Chi Minh or whomever doesn't get his revenge. We also bought some dragonfruit to try from a street vendor.

We found this shop somewhat amusing. And I like the head with the cigarette too:

After our smoothies, we walked back to the book fair to look around some more. Lauren and Anna wanted me to put the camera away.

Bill, I think you would sell more books if you would only learn the proper way to display them:

There are lots of manicured trees like this here:

So William got his wish and we went back to the Diamond Plaza and had dinner at KFC that night.

The curious pretend-mashed-potatoes-and gravy-made-out-of-rice. I believe the chicken was real.

The bowling alley in the Diamond Plaza.

We had our dragonfruit for a bedtime snack. It wasn't as good as I'd dreamed, but not bad. Kids didn't care for it.

I got everything packed up and hit the hay--early flight the next day.

Vung Tao beach ~ Mon. March 10

2008-03-12T11:37:00.023-05:00

First a couple pictures of the Evergreen Hotel lobby:

Some of the friendly staff:

We hired the car and driver from the hotel to take us to a beach for the day. The closest beach was in Vung Tao, about 2.5 hours away.

William finally gets to feed the baby on the way to the beach:

It was lunchtime when we arrived in Vung Tao, so we stopped at this very casual Vietnamese restaurant right on the beach. Not a soul there spoke English, which made ordering our food interesting! Here's the name of the restaurant, if you happen to be in town--the food was pretty good, and cheap!

The kids all like to use chopsticks, but some are better at it than others:

Thomas demonstrates the "poke & stab" chopstick technique:

Anna and Lauren were quite adventurous with their orders of plain white rice:

We were all excited to take a dip in the South China Sea, but once we walked down to the beach from the restaurant, we were very disappointed in how dirty and littered the beach was. We rented (got taken) some beach chairs and umbrellas and the kids had fun anyway.

Not too thrilled with the idea of going in.

(Pssst, Don! You missed a spot with that sunblock!)

These poor guys were digging for *something*, (clams maybe?) but not having any luck. They were plowing the sand in the shallow water with a shovel-thing with a net attached, then washing out the sand and finding their nets empty. I suspect they were hoping to find some sort of critters.

Little old lady selling peanuts out of her basket:

On the drive home--she's really starting to look for me now and will play with others contentedly for a while, but then she'll start reaching for me. This is supposed to be a good sign for attachment in adopted children, that she singles out one person (usually mom) and looks to that person for safety and comfort.

After we got back to the hotel and decontaminated ourselves, we took a very short taxi ride to a shopping center, the Diamond Plaza. Without kids, I'd say you could walk here from the Evergreen fairly easily. This place has department stores and a bowling alley along with a KFC and a Pizza Hut. Much to William's dismay, Pizza Hut won tonight. They had good fruit fizzy drinks here, and plenty of food options in addition to the usual pizza.

***Note: Lauren has been complaining about me taking all of the restaurant/food pictures. I like to do this because eating out is a big part of my vacation experience, and remembering where and what we ate helps me to remember the trip better. And I like pretty food. So there.

I have to get to bed so will try to catch up more later. We arrived in Hanoi this morning and are at the Somerset Grand.

Leaving for Hanoi in the morning

2008-03-11T10:42:00.002-05:00

It's about 10:45 pm Tuesday night here, and I just finished packing our things. We have to get up early tomorrow to catch a 7:30am flight to Hanoi. I wanted to post some more pictures, but I'm still having trouble with the internet connection with uploading pictures. Hopefully it will be better in Hanoi and I can put them up.

Today Don had to go with Kim to the police station to pick up baby's passport, and then we went across the street to the park where there was a huge book fair going on. I was able to get some children's picture books with both Vietnamese and English words for the pictures. Also picked up some maps of HCMC and Hanoi and an atlas of Vietnam. We found a KFC not too far away, and William begged to go there for dinner. They must not have mashed potatoes here--instead, we were served rice formed into a "hill" with gravy over it. Too funny.

More to come from Hanoi!

Update

2008-03-10T21:12:00.005-05:00

Sorry to be slow to update the blog; the internet connection keeps quitting, and uploading pictures has been painfully s...l...o...w lately. I will just do an update for now and then hopefully come back later to add more pictures. Sunday morning, we all took a taxi to the War Remnants museum. There were several captured U.S. fighter planes, tanks, big guns etc. that the boys enjoyed. I told Don to go tell the guard that these items belong to us and we'd like them back now please, but he was too chicken. lol. Inside, there were many, many photographs from the war with the US, and also from Vietnam's earlier war for independence from France. Some of the pictures were pretty graphic. This probably isn't an attraction I'd recommend taking younger kids to; they were pretty bored by it all. But very interesting for war history buffs. After the museum, we went to downtown HCMC and had lunch at a place called Saigon Underground. Pretty good burgers, pizza etc; sort of like the food you might find at an Applebees or TGI Fridays.

After lunch, Don took all the kid's back to the hotel to relax and watch movies while Lauren and I made another attempt to conquer Ben Thanh market. Easier without kids, but still very crowded and hard to navigate. We did pick up some Ao Dai's for baby in several sizes so she will have one to wear each year for Tet or pictures. I also got some chopsticks, a wall hanging and a few other items, but we were getting burned-out pretty quickly with the crowds, the smells, and the beggars. How do you say no to a woman with a child saying "baby hungry."? There were quite a few hungry babies around the market.

We also stopped at a shop that I'd heard about that has hand-embroidered baby clothes, "N-Kids", and let's just say that baby will have *plenty* of dresses to wear this summer. This shop is across the street from Saigon Center. Everything was so adorable, and mean Lauren made me leave before I could spend all our money.
Bucket-o-crabs (alive and winking!) at Ben Thanh market:

Fancy-vegetable-making at the market:

Who needs a drive -thru window? Just drive right up to the counter!

After our shopping, we headed over to the Rex Hotel for a drink in their roof-top bar. Lauren doesn't drink, but she wanted to try this since the drinking age in VN is like 15 or something, and she'll be 20 in about a week. I was very disappointed in the drinks though; quite expensive, and I had about the worst Pina Colada I've ever tasted. It was warm, for Pete's sake! I like my Pina Coladas icy and slushy. Lauren had a White Russian--I tasted it too and it wasn't good at all. She didn't finish it.

Then we went to a salon and had manicures and pedicures with foot massages--what a nice treat that was! And very inexpensive compared to what it would have cost in the US.

We got back to the hotel around 9pm Sunday evening--the kids were in bed and Don was thrilled to view our purchases (cough, cough). Lauren and I got some pho from the hotel restaurant brought to our room, and we crashed.

Yesterday morning (Monday) we arranged to use the hotel van and driver to take us to the nearest "decent" beach, Vung Tao, about 2 1/2 hour drive from our hotel. We arrived around lunchtime, had lunch at a very casual Vietnamese restaurant on the beach, and spent the afternoon there. I'll post more about it later, hopefully with pictures, but we're going to head out for a while right now to the park across the street where they're having a book fair.

Saigon Zoo

2008-03-08T08:32:00.025-06:00

We got a slow start today, but decided to go to the zoo. Sweetie pie was in a good mood this morning. Some success in the elimination department was had courtesy of the mashed papaya as recommended by the friendly Vietnamese ladies who work in the restaurant upstairs.

We took a short taxi ride to the zoo, and let me just say that I'm thinking PETA might have a few issues with this place. Probably would fall a little short on meeting US safety standards too. Can you think of anywhere in America where you can do this?:

There were people selling bags of carrot sticks and ?sugar cane to feed the animals. We bought a bag of carrots, and after the elephants, we came across this cute 'little' pygmy hippopotomus. He had his snout stuck right up against the chain link fence and we could feed him the carrots right thru the fence! I'm wondering how many fingers he's eaten. I mean, those were some serious teeth!

We were the attraction of choice when we stopped for a beverage break. Several people in the refreshments area came up and motioned to us for permission to take our picture. I felt like we were a primate exhibit. The staring lasted all day--we should've started charging admission. We don't look *that* wierd, do we?

There was a Vietnam history museum near the entrance of the zoo that we explored before we went home. Lots of old relics and such from Vietnam's past. Very interesting--Don and the boys were in hog heaven looking at the old cannons--but we were getting tired by this time and headed back to the hotel.

I just LOVE this face she makes--so cute!

We had heard about a burger joint just around the corner from our hotel, so we headed out in the rain to get some dinner. Luckily it was a quick walk. This place was kind of like a McDonalds--order at the counter fast food, but they didn't get the food *quite* right. The ketchup tasted *almost* like ketchup, and the fries were okay. Good try though, and the kids liked it alright. They had fun sitting at the counter watching the Saigon traffic go by.

Yep, she pretty much has him wrapped around her finger already.

For my adoption world friends who may be traveling to HCMC in the near future, here are some pictures of our "deluxe" room at the Evergreen Hotel. Our other room is a "standard" and is quite a bit smaller, with just one queen and one twin bed. We are quite happy with this hotel, and the staff is very friendly and helpful.

That's all for now. Tomorrow we're going to try to the War Remnants Museum in the morning, and then just Lauren and I might go back to Ben Thanh market for some shopping without the kids.

Cao Dai Temple & Cu Chi Tunnels

2008-03-07T09:06:00.035-06:00

Thursday evening, we decided to try a new place for dinner that was within walking distance of our hotel, and was recommended in the Vietnam guidebook "Lonely Planet". We walked up and down the street past where we thought it should be several times before someone finally told us to turn down a little alley. Sure enough, there it was. Banh Xeo was large and crowded with locals and tourists alike. Unfortunately, the dish they're "famous" for came with a large platter of some kind of lettuce/greens that we aren't supposed to eat, and I think that was integral to the dish, so it wasn't as good as I'd hoped. The beef cubes were good though.

The kitchen at Banh Xeo: After dinner, we nearly became road kill once again in our quest to reach a bakery for these tasty treats. At home, I've always told the kids, "Look both ways before you cross the street." Here, I say, "Don't look! Just walk!" It's truly suicide waiting to happen. My mother would have a stroke if she saw us.

Yesterday, (Friday) we took a tour arranged by our hotel to see the Cao Dai Temple and Cu Chi Tunnels. The Temple was about a 2 hour drive north or NW of Saigon. The monks were having a prayer service while we were there, and there was a group of musicians playing traditional music during the service. Quite a spectacle to behold.

Ouside in front of the Cao Dai temple.

After the temple, we back-tracked towards HCMC to get to the Cu Chi tunnels. We went thru several small villages along the way, and saw people and water buffalo in the rice fields in the countryside. The roads were very bumpy in places, and while the traffic is less than in the city, the driving is still insane. Lil' Punkin slept alot of the ride, and she enjoyed playing with everyone when she was awake.

The Cu Chi tunnels were a large network of underground tunnels, living quarters, medical facilities, dining halls, etc. used by Viet Cong guerillas during the war to lauch surprise attacks against the "American devils". (The little film they showed at the beginning of the tour was *slightly* one-sided.)

Here is a Cu Chi guerilla family:

Here is my family:
Most of the tunnels on the tour have been enlarged for easier tourist access, but one was still true size.

Here is a small Asian man entering the tunnel:

Here is a large American man attempting to enter the tunnel. Uh, Don? I don't think so...nice try though.

I went through one of the enlarged tunnels, and that was enough for me. Can you say, CLAUSTROPHOBIA? The kids had a blast going thru all of them though.

This is one of the hundreds of booby traps they set for the American baby-killers. The fall's not bad, but the landing's a little rough:

Don's butt:

Anna, William and Lauren coming up out of one of the tunnels:

We also ran across a temple on our walk back to the van after touring the tunnels. Not sure which temple this is, but I loved the dragons.

Today we are going to go to the zoo, and maybe the War Museum if we have time. Later!

Today's math lesson: Ben Thanh market + hot weather x 6 kids = bad idea

2008-03-06T02:52:00.011-06:00

This is what that combination will get ya:

Baby no-name seems to be warming up to us a little more now, and we even get an occasional smile from her. She's beginning to look for me and reach for me sometimes. But the poor little thing is so constipated, and her tummy hurting her. She hasn't had a BM at all since we've had her. I had heard that the babies from this orphanage are often constipated; I don't know if it's the formula or what. I've been mixing some prunes with her rice cereal, so hopefully this will do the trick, because she's just miserable.

We decided to take a taxi to Ben Thanh market this morning--Ben Thanh is a huge marketplace where you can find almost anything, and you have to bargain for prices. I wanted to get all the girls Ao Dai's, the traditional Vietnamese garb. It was very hot and crowded and the merchants were a *bit* pushy. We weren't in there 2 minutes before we came across a booth selling the Ao Dai's, and the moment we showed interest they were on us like flies on you-know-what. They *are* gorgeous outfits, but I don't think I did a very good job of bargaining on them. They ended up selling me traditional outfits for the boys too. I'm such a pushover. After that, we walked around the market for a little while longer, but the kids were complaining and wanted to leave. I definitely want to go back sans children to look around more and pick up some gifts and souvenirs. So we left the market and walked down the street a few blocks to a Highland's Coffee that we had passed in the taxi. I had heard they had good fruit smoothies and coffee drinks, so we had a nice lunch here.

Pad thai was very good:

After lunch, we walked around a bit in downtown Saigon. I finally found a camera/electronics shop to get a new battery charger to replace the one I fried yesterday. Then we got a taxi and headed back to the hotel. We're relaxing here in the A/C for a while before we head out to try to find a new place for dinner. Sweetie pie took a nice nap, but she's still not feeling the best.

Tomorrow we are going to see the Cu Chi tunnels--an underground network of tunnels used by the Viet Cong during the "American War" as they call it here. The hotel has arranged for a van and driver to pick us up in the morning and take us to the tunnels, and also a temple.

2008-03-05T16:13:00.022-06:00

Here are some of the fruits brought to our breakfast table in the hotel restaurant each morning. I don't know what the spikey red things are called, but they sure are good! So are the funny brown things. And the green things. lol.

William, Don and the baby at breakfast yesterday (Wed.)

Wednesday morning after breakfast, Don stayed at the hotel with the kids while Lauren & I went with Ellie and Kim to baby's medical exam at a hospital clinic in HCMC. This exam is required to get her passport; basically it's a very general examination to determine if she's healthy enough to fly. Here's Lauren holding the little munchkin in the taxi on the way to the clinic. I never thought I'd ever allow a baby of mine to go in a car without a carseat, but there you go. And in crazy traffic too.

Kim (holding baby) and Ellie in the clinic waiting room.They are our agency's staff here in HCMC. They are so nice and this adoption could not have been accomplished without their help. We'd be totally lost without their help.

The doctor and nurse who did her exam. I told him about the way she's constantly pulling and scratching at her left ear and could he check if she has an ear infection? He said to put Benadryl cream on the outside the ear and have her wear mittens. ?? Nary an otoscope in sight. Okay....

She really enjoyed getting weighed and measured. And when I guessed that she weighed about 15 pounds, I was correct. Kind of little for 8 1/2 mos. old, but within normal range. The 3 to 6 month size baby clothes fit her just fine.

Outside the clinic, just one of several areas of scooter parking. These pictures were all taken outside the hospital.

After the medical exam, we went to downtown HCMC to get her passport/visa picture taken and then to the Vietnam Airlines office to purchase our tickets to Hanoi. We'll need to stay in HCMC until her passport is ready on the 11th, and then we'll fly to Hanoi early morning on the 12th. So we're free to sightsee until then. Here is a picture of the People's Committee in downtown HCMC. Communist government building; I don't think we'd be allowed to go into it.

After we got back to the hotel, we met back with Don and the kids and had lunch and hung out in the room for awhile. Baby was doing some pretty good crawling on the floor; if I (or Lauren) ever figure out to upload video clips, we'll put it up. Later in the afternoon, we decided to go for a walk in the neighborhood. Here's that pink church we saw from the restaurant balcony.

Some of the neighborhood buildings. I need to go check out that Kodak store because I accidently (stupidly) plugged the battery charger for the camera batteries into the outlet without using a converter, and I fried it.

We found this picture in a restaurant window amusing.

Streets of Saigon.

The green building is our hotel, the Evergreen. Good choice of paint color.

Closer picture of the Evergreen. You can see the restaurant towards the top with the balcony.

How'd you like to be an electrical lineman here?

So after breakfast this morning, we are going to do something touristy--not sure what yet. I'm so glad we brought all the kids along. Some said we'd regret it, that it would be too hard. Yes, it would be easier to get around without them, but they are learning so much. This is an eye-opening experience for all of us, and one we'll never forget.

2008-03-04T13:33:00.013-06:00

It's 2:30am on Wed. here and I woke up and thought this might be a good time to update the blog since everyone else is sleeping--I might actually be able to write something! Everyone is doing well so far; kids aren't fighting (much) and we're all in awe of this amazing city! The baby -- we're getting closer to a name--is also doing well for the most part. She has been a trooper, considering what's she's been through in these past 2 days. When we first got her on Monday, I think she was in shock, wondering what the heck was going on and who are all these weird people? But to yesterday (Tues.), after she woke up from an afternoon nap, I think reality set in for her and she realized we weren't taking her back. She cried and cried, and even mother-Anna couldn't get her to stop. We finally went out for a walk to try a new restaurant for dinner and the street noise and lights captured her attention and got her mind off her woes for awhile. She was fine after that, and has been sleeping since her 9pm bottle.

I'm going to recap our adventures of the past 2 days while the memories are fresh in my head. When we arrived on Monday, Kim and Ellie (our adoption agency staff here in HCMC) met us at the airport. They had to get 2 cabs to fit us all (I think I saw a twinge of panic in their eyes when they saw us, even though they knew we were bringing the whole family, lol), so we split up into two groups for the crazy drive to our hotel. We are at the Evergreen hotel, and it was only about 15 or 20 min. to get there, but I think we came within inches of a collision about 50 times during the trip. The people here are amazingly talented drivers to be able to avoid crashing with each other. It's like magic! And no seatbelts or carseats either, wheee!

We got to the hotel around noon, and had 3 hours to get ready to go to the orphanage. We had to get 2 rooms, so Don, William and Richard took the smaller one with a double bed and twin bed, and Lauren, Anna, Thomas, the baby, and I share the larger one with a King and a Queen bed. There's also a pack n play for the baby in each room, but I'm having her sleep with me and Thomas in the big bed. We got a quick shower and got the gifts for the orphange staff wrapped and met Ellie and Kim in the lobby at 3pm for another 2 taxi trip to the orphanage. It was only 10 minutes or so away, and I was surprised at the location; from pictures I had seen of Phu My orphanage, it looked very serene and secluded, but no, we turned in thru a gate from a very busy city street. Very different and peaceful once thru the gates. We went to the office and were introduced to the assistant director, Sister Hon. The director's son was sick that day, so she had taken the day off. The playground/courtyard was just outside the office, so we looked around out there for a few minutes (it was a beautiful day, sunny and warm, but not hot and humid at all like I thought it would be), and then they called us back into the office and there she was!! I went right over and picked her up and Lauren got out the video camera and captured it I think. We all spent a few minutes there meeting her and taking a few pictures, then we went outside again and let the kids play on the playground. There were a few other children who came out to play--this orphanage primarily houses handicapped kids--and one little girl about 5 years old was very interested in us and kept showing us her book. I asked Kim if we could go see the baby room so we could see all the other babies, but she said no, they wouldn't allow it. Something about not wanting the babies to get germs? I didn't push it, though I really wanted to get in there and take pictures. I know others have been allowed in during past visits, but maybe it's because we had all our kids with us, I don't know. Anyway, to those of you whom I promised to try to see your babies and take pictures, I'm sorry. But know that this orphanage seems very clean and well-run, and I have no doubt that your babies are being loved and well-cared for.

When it was time to go, Don and the kids and baby all went back to the hotel in one taxi with Kim, while I went with Ellie in another to go shopping for baby formula, diapers, and water bottles. We met back at the hotel and Kim and Ellie said they would be back the next morning to pick us up for the Giving & Receiving ceremony. We relaxed in the room for awhile, getting to know sweet pea, and went for dinner later in the hotel restaurant on the top floor. Jet lag had definitely begun to set in, and Thomas had fallen asleep, so Don stayed in the room with him while the rest of us had dinner and brought food back down for him. The food in this restaurant is amazingly cheap; steak and fries $3. We went to bed early, but then baby cried for quite awhile before I could get her to sleep. She slept until around 3 am or so, and I gave her a bottle and she went back to sleep.

I woke up at 6am and took my shower and got ready before I got the others up. Breakfast in the restaurant (order off the menu) is included in the price of our rooms ($80 for the big room, $60 for the small room) so we went back up to the top floor restaurant for a delicious breakfast. They brought out platters of fresh fruit--the recognizable watermelon, pineapple, and grapefruit, and then several myterious scary looking fruits that we all bravely sampled, and I'm glad we did because it was all delicious! The kids also had french toast or pancakes, we had omelettes, and everything was very good. The coffee was awesome--even Don liked it--it has a different flavor with almost a cocoa aftertaste. Really good.

We met Kim and Ellie in the lobby to go to the G&R ceremony at an official looking government building (I think it was called the Justice Dept?), where we were introduced to the government official in charge of the adoption. We had a moment of panic when we couldn't find our camera bag with the video camera and regular camera inside. Lauren thought she had it over her shoulder when we left the hotel room, but it was gone. She was worried that she might have left it in the taxi. Kim called the hotel, and luckily she had left it in the lobby and it was still there, so they held it for us. So Kim kindly took pictures with her camera during the ceremony and emailed them to me. The kids waited with Lauren in the crowded waiting room and they called Don and I and the baby into an adjacent room (with glass windows so the kids could still see us), and we had the ceremony--basically just signing some documents and taking pictures. It only took about 10 minutes. Then we went back to the hotel and had a few hours to relax. Don was to meet Ellie at 2pm to go to the police station to apply for the baby's passport, so we fed the baby and then we all went up to the hotel restaurant again for lunch. I took these pictures then, and there is a balcony right outside the dining room and Lauren took some picures of the view of HCMC from there. After lunch, Don went with Ellie, so the kids and I went for a walk in the park across the street from the hotel. Lots of "mall-walkers" in the park; a few stopped to pinch Thomas's cheeks or talk to us, but most just stared at our strange little entourage! We headed back to the hotel and Don and Ellie got back soon after. We had some paperwork to sign, and then Ellie left. Don took the boys to the other room to relax and watch a DVD, and Lauren, Anna, and I fed the baby and got her down for a nap. When she woke up in the late afternoon, she looked around and that's when the s#*t hit the fan. She was inconsolable. I knew from reading about previous adoptive families that often on the 2nd day the grieving begins, so I think this is why she was so upset. She has also been pulling on her ear alot, so maybe she has an ear infection, but she doesn't have a fever. After a couple hours of crying, we decided to take a walk with her an find a restaurant and like I mentioned before, this seemed to distract her and she stopped crying. It was now around 6pm or so, and it was dark, but the streets were bright and noisy and busy, jam packed with moterscooter, the preferred method of travel here. Constant beeping and horn honking. We said a prayer as we came to the first intersection, and walked out into the mayhem with our beloved children. We miraculously made it to the other side intact. Strollers here would be utterly useless; if the street's too crowded, they just drive their bikes up onto the sidewalk. This is also where they park their moterbikes, and where they sit, hang out, whatever, basically making the sidewalks an obstacle course. Bring your infant carrier, leave the stroller at home. We went to a Vietnamese restaurant a few blocks down the street from our hotel, and then came home and crashed.

We have to meet Ellie in the lobby at 9am to take the baby to a health clinic for a required physical exam. I hope they can check her ears and see if they're infected. Then we need to get her pictures taken for her visa, and then stop at the airline office to purchase our tickets to Hanoi; we'll be flying there on the 12th, as her passport is supposed to be ready on the 11th, and she needs this before we can go. To make things easier, Don will stay at the hotel with the kids, and Lauren will go with me and the baby to these appointments. So I better try to get some more sleep, but I'm glad I got this all written down before I forgot it.

At the park across the street from our hotel:

In our hotel restaurant:

The view from the balcony outside the restaurant; we want to take a walk and find that pink church tomorrow.

She has no teeth yet, but I think she's working on it:

Anna can coax a *teensy* smile from her:

All my children:

Photos from the G&R ceremony-those are the Vietnamese gov't. officials.

Outside the Justice Department. Turn your head, sorry.

More pics from yesterday at the orphanage

2008-03-04T04:25:00.007-06:00

I'm going to post a few more pictures from yesterday at the orphanage, then we have to head out for dinner. I'll post later this evening about this morning's G&R ceremony.

Our new family in the orphanage courtyard.
One of her nannies, saying goodbye. You could tell they loved her alot.

My 3 daughters.

The girls.

More later.

Finally, Some Pictures!

2008-03-03T18:50:00.012-06:00

This is Lauren, posting for mom who is taking a shower. We are getting ready this morning to go to the Giving and Recieving Ceremony. She has sent me to post some pictures for you all.

Here's Anna, Lauren, and Richard on the plane from Hong Kong to HCMC.

Here's Anna, William, Richard and Lauren after having just arrived in Vietnam, still in the airport.

The playground at the orphanage. The kids had a lot of fun with it.

Here's Don holding baby (Mom still hasn't picked out a name yet) for the first time.

Here's the whole family, including the newest addition.

Everyone standing with baby's main caretaker (blue shirt) and Sister Hon (white shirt).

Everyone ('cept mom) in the orphanage courtyard.

Don, baby and mom in the orphanage courtyard.

Mom giving baby her first bottle (with us, anyway) in our hotel room.

We'll be back with more pictures later!

We're here and we've got her!!!

2008-03-03T08:30:00.002-06:00

This will be short because I'm exhausted and need to sleep, but we have our girl! We were picked up at the airport late this morning and taken to our hotel around noon. We had time for a quick, much needed shower, and put together our orphanage gifts, and then off to the orphanage to get our baby! We took lots of pictures and video, but the camera batteries need recharging before I can download the pics, so that will have to wait till tomorrow, then we'll try to post a bunch--good thing Lauren's here to help with that! The G&R ceremony is tomorrow morning.

She's very sweet and beautiful, and the kids just adore her, and so do we!

Last day before we leave!

2008-02-29T08:27:00.003-06:00

I got most of my shopping done yesterday--thank goodness I ran into a couple of friends, Lori & Butch, when I was at Walmart trying to figure out which video camera to buy. I haven't bought one since 1988 when Lauren was born, and that was the gigantic kind that sat on your shoulder and you stuck vhs tapes into, so I was totally confused. Thanks you guys! Now if you wouldn't mind coming along with me so you can work it for me--I hate reading instruction manuals! I know, I know, you've got better things to do.....have a great cruise!

The kids are being good (so far) today, doing their own schoolwork so I can get things done. (We homeschool, if you didn't know). This trip is going to be a great learning experience for them. I hope we can find time to do a little of the 3R's while we're there too, but I'm not going to worry about it if we don't. We'll just have the best geography/social studies lesson ever!

Back to packing...

I love Fedex

2008-02-27T22:59:00.002-06:00

They brought me TWO packages today; one contained our airline tickets, and the other was our passports, back safely from the Vietnamese Consulate in San Franciso, with lovely VN visas inside! That didn't take long at all! I paid the extra $20 each to expidite them, and they arrived at the consulate Monday morning, and they were picked up by Fedex Tuesday late afternoon.

Took the boys and myself to get haircuts today, and have been making steady progress on my "to do" lists. It's customary to give small gifts to various people in VN--orphanage directors, baby caretakers, provincial officials, etc. and I still have to buy these. Chocolate seems to be a popular gift, but it's supposed to be in the 90's in HCMC so I'm not sure how long they would last once we land in HCMC. Shopping for gifts is on the list for tomorrow, so I'd better think of something.

I *tried* to take Anna to a make-up ballet class today since she'll be missing several while we're gone. I didn't get too far though. I was talking to Anna and not paying very close attention to the way I was backing down the driveway and I got stuck in one of the stinkin' snow-cliffs we have lining each side of the driveway. Note to self: in the future, do not try to dig a vehicle out of the snow while wearing Crocs. I'm so sick of winter---three cheers for tropical countries!

I can't believe we leave in 3 days!

If you see my head somewhere, let me know...

2008-02-25T07:18:00.003-06:00

Nobody said it would be easy to plan a trip for 2 adults, a college student, and 4 kids to the other side of the world with one week's notice. I have little post-it notes scattered throughout my brain of things I need to get done. Unfortunately, none of this has been organized and put down on paper. That's my first order of business today.

And how to pack "light" for 7 people plus a baby of unknown size and shape when it's hot in HCMC and cool in Hanoi. This one will take some pondering.

But I can't complain--I'm so overjoyed that we will soon be holding this little person in our arms and welcoming her into our family.

We're going to Vietnam!!!

2008-02-23T23:45:00.002-06:00

The past two days have been crazy and full of emotions, both happy and sad. Friday I got up and checked my email, and my heart started pounding out of my chest when I saw an email from Hanoi Adoptions--nope, not that receipt email I've been missing, but the current holy grail of Vietnam adoption emails--the I600 approval! I was shocked, thrilled, panic-stricken, amazed; I really didn't expect to see this for another month or two. I'm sad though for my friends in the VN adoption community who have been waiting for their approvals alot longer than I have. I was hoping to see a whole slew of approvals when I got mine, but unfortunately that didn't happpen.

So I'm thinking, wow, I have alot to do, but surely it will be a couple of weeks before they can schedule the G&R ceremony. Wrong again! "Call your travel agent and see how soon he can get you there", says our caseworker later that day. Travel agent says, "How about next Saturday?"
"Holy shit!" says Sue.

On the other end of the emotion spectrum, I attended the wake and funeral of my dearest friend's mom who has been very ill for a long time. Such a nice lady--I spent countless hours at her house when Ronda and I were in high school, and I'm so sad for Ronda and her family. I hope her mom is in a better place where there's no more pain and suffering.

You need a visa to enter Vietnam, so this morning, before the funeral, I had to get all 7 of our visa applications filled out, photos attached, sent Don to the bank to get the cashier's check for the application fees, and got them all ready to go so Don could run them over to Dubuque to the Fedex office before they closed at 2pm. so they can be overnighted to the Vietnamese Consulate in San Francisco. We had to pay extra to have them expidited, the they should process them in 2 days, and overnight them back to us, so if all goes well, we should have our passports and visas back by Thurs. or Friday. I hope.

I got home from the funeral late this afternoon and started back in on the travel planning, and I get a call from MY mom. (She's 83 and had heart surgery last year) Not feeling well, but oh, I'll be alright. She didn't put up a fuss when I said she needed to go to the doctor, so I knew then that she was feeling REALLY bad. Of course, this was at 4pm on a Saturday. So, long story short, I ended up in the emergency room with her--she had a kidney infection and was dehydrated, so she needed some IV fluids and IV antibiotics. So I just got back from taking her home. Of course, the medic alert necklace that she is *supposed* to be wearing at home seems to have mysteriously disappeared. So I wasn't too keen on leaving her there by herself when she's sick without that necklace.

Tomorrow I get to attend a baby shower for my niece, Kelley. She's 26, but it seems like such a short time ago that *she* was just a baby. It seems so strange that she and I will both have new babies soon.

Now I have to get to bed. Lots to do tomorrow!

2008-01-31T07:45:00.000-06:00

STILL no confirmation email from USCIS that they've received my I600!! I've seen reports over the past week from several people whose I600's arrived in HCMC after mine announcing they have received their confirmation emails, so of course this has me picturing my packet literally falling through a crack in someone's desk and laying unseen for eternity.

This makes me so furious that our baby has to lay in an orphanage for all these months because OUR government decided to change the process, seemingly on a whim, and without planning how their change would be implemented in order to avoid this mess. We adoptive parents are suffering, absolutely, but it's the children who are losing the most, and it's breaking my heart.

2008-01-29T23:59:00.000-06:00

Woke up this morning to find new pictures of the sweetie in my email--that always makes for a great start to the day! She's getting so big and looks like she's getting ready to crawl soon. I want to scoop her up into my arms SOOO BAD! Looks like she got her hair trimmed too; her bangs are shorter.

Still no receipt email from USCIS; it's been over 2 weeks since Fedex tracking confirmed that my I600 was delivered to their HCMC office. Would it kill somebody there to pick the damn thing up and look at it??!! Arrgh!

Let's try this again...

2008-01-19T19:21:00.000-06:00

Can't wait to put ribbons and bows in this hair!

Practice

2008-01-19T18:35:00.000-06:00

Bear with me as I practice putting images on this blog. Here are some pics of the kids on our last trip to Disney World last September.

Trying to post pictures

2008-01-19T17:59:00.001-06:00

We aren't allowed to post pictures publicly until after the Giving & Receiving ceremony in Vietnam, so I will only post some sneak previews here. I will need to work on the sizing/spacing issues, lol! But aren't those the most kissable little lips?

What's new?

2008-01-19T15:36:00.000-06:00

Well, it's clear that I'm a horrible blogger. I'll try to do better, but no guarantees. Since I haven't posted since we got our referral, I will try to summarize what has happened with our adoption since then:

We were lucky enough to receive new pictures of our little sweetie right before Halloween when another adoptive parent with our agency went to our baby's orphanage and was able to see her and take lots of pictures. It was so wonderful to see all the pictures, but a little bit sad to see how much she changed in just one month, and realize how much of her little life we are missing.

We got a bunch of new pictures again in mid-December, this time from our agency. What a nice Christmas present that was!

We finally got the go-ahead from our agency to file our I600 on 1/9/08, so we completed our forms and overnight Fedexed them to our agency, and then they put them together with the baby's paperwork from the orphanage and sent the whole thing off to the USCIS office in HCMC where it arrived on 1/14/08. Now we are waiting for the email from USCIS to confirm receipt, and then we wait for approval. For those who might be reading this who are not familiar with the Vietnam international adoption process, basicially the I600 is a form that, together with several other documents, must be sent to the USCIS (US immigration) in order to receive an immigrant visa for our baby to enter the US. This used to be applied for in Vietnam AFTER the adoption took place, but they changed the process in October so that now adoptive parents must apply BEFORE traveling. This has caused delays in many of our adoptions as agencies and orphanages scrambled to figure out the new process, and now more delays as we wait for USCIS to process the applications and issue approvals.

So when will we travel? Good question. USCIS has stated that approvals will take no more than 60 days from receipt of applications; some have received approvals much more quickly, and others are approaching the 60-day mark with NO approval. We still haven't received our official "receipt" email, even though I know from Fedex tracking that our I600 arrived at their office on 1/14. So I'm *guessing* that, if all goes well, we should travel sometime between late Feb. and late March.

We have a referral!

2007-10-02T20:26:00.000-05:00

This morning, I received a call from our case worker, Jenny, and she had great news for us! We have been matched with a beautiful baby girl in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC=formerly Saigon). She was born 6/22/07 and is residing in an orphanage in HCMC. I'm not allowed to post pictures of her on the internet yet--she is not officially "ours" until the Giving & Receiving Ceremony in Vietnam--but she's a chubby little cutie with a enormous shock of black hair!

I will be meeting with our pediatrician tomorrow so he can look at her pictures and review her medical records. Once we get his opinion that there doesn't appear to be anything amiss with her health or development (as much as he can tell from a few pictures and some lab tests anyway), then we will officially accept the referral and begin the wait until we can travel to get her. Unfortunately, that may not be until mid-February, according to Jenny. I can only hope and pray that it will be sooner, but I don't know how likely that is. I just want to hop on a plane right now and go scoop her up! It's going to be awfully hard to look at her pictures every day and wonder how she's doing and if she's getting enough love and attention. (She's obviously getting plenty of food, no worries there!)

At least that will give us enough time to agree on a name for the poor child. She has a Vietnamese name--I assume the orphanage director named her, but I don't really know-- but we will be giving her a new name when we adopt her. Let's just say her current first name starts with a "ph" and rhymes with "duck". And to think--I was worried about Richard getting the nickname "Dick" later on!

Nothing new on the adoption front

2007-07-29T12:23:00.000-05:00

Still waiting for our referral. I'm hopeful it will come soon. Meanwhile, I am keeping myself very busy planning that trip to Disney World. Heh, heh.

Soccer and baseball and swimming...oh my!

2007-07-11T22:54:00.001-05:00

The kids' sports are keeping us hopping and summer is just flying by again. The Walmart flyer that came in the mail today had back-to-school stuff advertised. This always makes me a little sad, because summer is my favorite season and I hate the thought of another winter approaching.
I try to tell myself that this is a good thing this year, because it will make the wait for referral and travel to Vietnam seem quicker, but I'm not falling for that line. I still want summer to last all year 'round! My sister-in-law told me that my niece is moving to Florida, and I'm so jealous! Shorts-weather forever!! That's what I'm talkin' about! Someday....

Did you miss me?

2007-07-08T20:17:00.001-05:00

Ok, so it's been awhile. What's new on the adoption front you ask? Well, let's see...many fingerprints later, we finally finished our dossier and are officially DTV (Documents To Vietnam) around June 7th or so, and now are patiently awaiting a referral of a baby girl. According to our caseworker, this should happen in the next month or so, and then we would travel to Vietnam around 8-10 weeks later.

I'll tell you why I've been negligent toward this blog; I've been spending all my free time stalking the blogs of other adopting families. While this may seem unproductive, I've learned a great deal from those who have gone before me. We will be incredibly well-prepared when it's our turn to go. So it's all time well spent. Yep.

Lauren is home for the summer, staying at my mom's. She got a summer job as a housekeeper at Eagle Ridge Inn, so that's keeping her busy. Since it looks extremely unlikely that we will be able to travel to VN before she goes back to college, I don't know if she'll be able to go with us. I know she still wants to, but she'll have to see what her professors have to say about missing 3 weeks of classes. Doesn't look good. Possibly she could go with us, but return by herself in a week or something, but I'm not thrilled with the idea of her trying to make her way from Vietnam to Illinois by herself, and I don't think she'll be comfortable doing this either. We'll just have to wait and see.

In other news, I've joined CruiseOne as an independent home-based travel agent. I'm with a CruiseOne franchise in Dubuque; the owner was looking for someone to book cruises in our town. It sounded like fun, and something I can do at home with the kids and keep homeschooling, and maybe earn a little to add to the breadbasket. So I'm busy learning everything I can about cruising, sending out postcards, trying to get my name out there. Now I just need a dang customer!

Anybody want to take a cruise? Call me!!

Still chasing those papers!

2007-02-26T21:02:00.000-06:00

We had our home visit with our social worker on 2/22; I'm glad that's overwith! Thank goodness she didn't do any white-glove tests. She's writing up our homestudy now.

Things seem to be moving along pretty well now. We sent our I-600A application (applic. to bring an orphan into the US) to the USCIS (immigration) on 1/31; received our fingerprint referral notices on 2/17 (invitation from USCIS to go get our fingerprints taken), and we went to their Naperville office to have our fingerprints taken on 2/24. Unfortunately, my fingerprints are worn, and might be rejected. If that happens, I'll have to go back and have them retaken. They will send me a notice if this is the case, but I'm not sure when. Evidently that office just takes the prints (electronic scan), and they're sent to a different office to be read or whatever. This fingerprint issue did not surprise me, because I've had this problem before. Would you believe that in Illinois, you have to have your fingerprints taken 3 different times for international adoption? First is for DCFS--electronic scan--to be checked for history of child abuse. The woman who took my prints for that told me that they would probably be rejected because they were worn. Luckily though, those did pass.

Then the 2nd time was for FBI criminal clearance. That time we had to go to the sherriff's dept. and have the old-fashioned ink-and-roll prints taken on paper cards, and then we had to send them to the FBI in West Virginia. Don's passed, no problem, but my 1st set were rejected as poor quality prints, so I had to have them taken again and sent in a 2nd time. I'm still waiting to hear if they passed. So it came as no surprise when the woman at the USCIS office said they weren't very good prints. What can I say? I guess I just wore them away with my life of endless toil, lol!

SO, once we get my FBI clearance (if my 2nd prints pass muster), our social worker can finish our home study and send it to USCIS. Then (assuming my prints THERE are sufficient), we will be issued the all-important I-171-H form, which is our official government permission to adopt a foreign orphan and bring her/him into the US to become a US citizen.

(When I worked at Finley Hospital, we had a drug cart that required putting our index finger print on a little screen to be read, and this would open the cart for us to remove the med we needed. I could NEVER get that stupid cart to open for me--now I know why!! I suppose I could embark on a new career as a criminal of some sort--they'd never be able to catch me by using fingerprints!!)

I really hope we can get everything finished up and sent to Vietnam by late April or early May; then we might travel this summer. Lauren can only go with us if we travel in the summer.

Here we go!

2007-02-06T16:20:00.000-06:00

Ok, so I'm totally new at this. No clue what I'm doing, but I want to document our adoption journey, so I guess I'll give it a try.

A brief introduction: I'm Sue. My husband is Don, and we have 5 kids: Lauren (18), twins William & Anna (10), Richard (almost 7), and Thomas (4). Shortly after Christmas, we decided to expand our family thru international adoption. We initially planned to adopt from China, but China recently changed their rules and apparently Don's too old for them now, at his advanced age of 50! Also the wait time for a referral of a healthy child in China is rumored to be up to 2 years or more. We would still be eligible to adopt a special needs child from China, and we did consider this for a while, but we learned more about the Vietnamese program, and have decided this is what will work best for our family. The wait time is much shorter (Don's not getting any younger, ya know!), and we meet the requirements for that country.

We're now in the midst of what's known as "the paperchase". Just like it sounds, lots and lots and lots of paperwork and gathering forms and documents. We're also having the required home study done; we've met with the social worker twice at her office, and she'll be coming to do our home visit in late February. We hope to have all of our paperwork finished and sent to Vietnam by May, and then we wait to be matched with a baby. We're requesting a baby girl. Our agency is saying that right now, there is a very short wait for this match, also known as the "referral". Once we receive and accept our referral, (which I think amounts to a couple pictures of the child, basic info like name and birth date, and medical exam info) , then we wait about 2 months or so until we are given the go-ahead to be able to travel to Vietnam to adopt her.

The trip requires spending about 3 weeks in Vietnam to complete all of the appointments and paperwork there. At this time, we are planning to take the whole family on the trip, but Lauren will only be able to go if we travel during summer break. Taking 4 kids & a teenager on a 3 week trip to Vietnam may sound crazy, true enough; but no one at home is crazy enough to want to keep them that long either, I'm sure!

Time to make supper for the hungry hoard.